Geraldine Oliva, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and a member of The Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California at San Francisco. Since 1992, she has been the Director of the Family Health Outcomes Project. Dr. Oliva is a board-certified pediatrician who has had a broad background as a clinician, public health administrator and researcher. Between 1973 and 1977, she directed the development and operation of the Adolescent Medicine Program at Children's Hospital in Oakland, California. During the next six years, she served as Medical Director of the San Francisco/Alameda Planned Parenthood affiliate. There, she developed a model for quality assurance based on process and outcome criteria that served as a prototype for both national Planned Parenthood and the federal Title X program. She also led the agency in the establishment of a multi-service center for youth in Hayward, California called the Eden Youth Center.

From 1982 to 1991, Dr. Oliva served as Family Health (MCAH) Director and then Deputy Director for Community Public Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. In this capacity she supervised all of the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health clinical services and programs and later all of the clinical and public health programs at the eight health centers run by the department. Accomplishments include the development of a credentialing system for clinicians, clinical protocols and a quality assurance system. She led an effort with Dr. Claire Brindis to establish the first school-based health clinic in California, now in its 21st year of operations. During her tenure she also worked collaboratively with Dr. Paula Braveman from UCSF to develop a model for local public health surveillance for women, infants, children and youth. The resulting report entitled "The Health and Well Being of Children in San Francisco" has been used nationally as a prototype for other health departments.

In 1992, Dr. Oliva conceived of and obtained funding to establish the Family Health Outcomes Project in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Oliva has served as principal investigator on numerous demonstration and research projects related to three areas. They include: development of approaches and tools for supporting local and state health departments in performing assessment, program planning and policy development and assurance; assessing the effects of health policy on the health status of children; and the development and evaluation of effective models of care for prevention of HIV infection in high risk women and eliminating disparities in birth outcomes through community-based participatory research. Dr. Oliva is currently the Principal Investigator on two projects: the first is "Building Capacity for Needs Assessment and Assurance for the 61 Health Jurisdictions in California" funded by the California Department of Health and Human Services Maternal and Child Health Branch; the second is a project "Improving the Quality, Access to and distribution of Essential Vital Records Data in California." The first project is focused on assisting LHJs with identifying indicators, data sources and analytic methods, conducting in-dept problem analysis and formal program evaluation. The second project is focusing on improving the quality of birth certificate data and standardizing the collecting, coding and reporting of race data. She is also PI on a new project " Conducting a Needs Assessment for Children with Special Health Care Needs" funded by the California department of Health Services, Children's Medical Services program. FHOP's role on this project is to convene and facilitate a statewide stakeholders group, conduct key informant interviews and focus groups throughout California, to develop a web-based survey for health care providers and families with special needs children, and to analyze existing data sources for this population. She is also participating in the UCSF Clinical Translational Science Institute; Community Engagement program that provides consultation and training on community based participatory research projects for UCSF staff and for community agencies.